This chapter contains:
In Oracle Database Vault, you can create a secure application role that you enable with an Oracle Database Vault rule set. Regular Oracle Database secure application roles are enabled by custom PL/SQL procedures. You use secure application roles to prevent users from accessing data from outside an application. This forces users to work within the framework of the application privileges that have been granted to the role.
The advantage of basing database access for a role on a rule set is that you can store database security policies in one central place, as opposed to storing them in all your applications. Basing the role on a rule set provides a consistent and flexible method to enforce the security policies that the role provides. In this way, if you must update the security policy for the application role, you do it in one place, the rule set. Furthermore, no matter how the user connects to the database, the result is the same, because the rule set is bound to the role. All you need to do is to create the role and then associate it with a rule set. The associated rule set validates the user who is trying to enable the role.
You can run reports on secure application roles that you create in Oracle Database Vault. See "Related Reports and Data Dictionary View" for more information.
This chapter explains how to configure secure application roles by using Oracle Database Vault Administrator. To configure secure application roles by using the PL/SQL interfaces and packages provided by Oracle Database Vault, refer to the following chapters:
Create a rule set that contains at least one rule to set the conditions for allowing or disallowing the user to enable the role.
When you create the underlying rule for the rule set, remember that the rule should validate the user who is trying to enable the role. The rule should validate the user who is trying to log in. See Chapter 5, "Configuring Rule Sets," for more information about rule sets.
Log in to Oracle Database Vault Administrator as a user who has been granted the DV_OWNER or DV_ADMIN role.
"Starting Oracle Database Vault" explains how to log in.
In the Administration page, under Database Vault Feature Administration, click Secure Application Roles.
In the Secure Application Roles page:
To create a new secure application role, click Create.
To edit an existing secure application role, select it from the list and then click Edit.
Remember that you can modify an existing secure application role only if it has been created in Oracle Database Vault. You cannot modify secure application roles or database roles that have been created outside of Oracle Database Vault. If you want to modify an existing Oracle Database role so that it can work with Oracle Database Vault, create a new secure application role in Oracle Database Vault and then grant the existing role to the secure application role. For example, in SQL*Plus:
GRANT myExistingDBrole TO myDVrole;
After you create a new secure application role, you must modify your code to use this new role. You can use DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE in your application code to accomplish this. See "SET_ROLE Procedure" for more information about the SET_ROLE function.
In the Create (or Edit) Role page, enter the following settings and then click OK.
Enter the following settings:
Role: Enter the name using no more than 30 characters, with no spaces. Preferably, enter the role name in upper case letters, though you are not required to do so. Ensure that this name follows the standard Oracle naming conventions for role creation using the CREATE ROLE statement, described in Oracle Database SQL Language Reference. This attribute is mandatory.
Status: Select either Enabled or Disabled to enable or disable the secure application role during run time. The default is Enabled. This attribute is mandatory.
Enabled: Enables the role to be available for use. That is, users are allowed to call the DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE function to try to enable the role. Note that whether or not the role will be enabled depends on the evaluation result of the associated rule set.
See "SET_ROLE Procedure" for more information about this function.
Disabled: Disables the role from being available for use. The DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE function will not be able to enable the role.
See "Oracle Database Vault PL/SQL Packages" for more information about the DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE function.
From the list, select the rule set that you want to associate with the secure application role. This attribute is mandatory.
When calling DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE, if the rule set evaluates to true, then Oracle Database Vault sets the role for the database session. If the rule set evaluates to false, then the role is not set.
See Chapter 5, "Configuring Rule Sets," for more information about rule sets.
Users who have database administrative privileges may try to use the DROP ROLE SQL statement to delete secure application roles that were created using Oracle Database Vault.
Whenever an Oracle Database Vault secure application role has been created, Database Vault adds the secure application role to the Database Vault realm. This prevents the database administrator from deleting the secure application role.
Before you delete a secure application role, you can locate the various references to it by querying the role-related Oracle Database Vault views. See Chapter 16, "Oracle Database Vault Data Dictionary Views," for more information.
To delete a secure application role:
Check and modify any applications that may be using the secure application role that you want to delete.
In the Oracle Database Vault Administration page, select Secure Application Roles.
In the Secure Application Roles page, select the role that you want to remove.
Click Remove.
In the Confirmation page, click Yes.
The process flow for a secure application role that is managed by Oracle Database Vault is as follows:
Create or update the role either in Oracle Database Vault Administrator or by using the secure application role-specific functions in the DBMS_MACADM package.
See "Secure Application Role Procedures Within DBMS_MACADM" for more information.
Modify your application to call the role, by using the DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE function.
See "SET_ROLE Procedure" for more information.
Oracle Database Vault then evaluates the rule set associated with the secure application role.
If the rule set evaluates to true, then Oracle Database Vault enables the role for the current session. If the rule set evaluates to false, the role is not enabled. In either case, Oracle Database Vault processes the associated auditing and custom event handlers for the rule set associated with the secure application role.
This section contains:
In this tutorial, you restrict the SELECT SQL statement on the ORDERS table in the OE schema to a specific set of users. Furthermore, these users can only perform these statements on the OE.ORDERS table from within the office, not from a remote connection. To accomplish this, you create an Oracle Database Vault secure application role that is enabled for the user only if the user passes the checks enforced by the rule set that you associate with the secure application role.
Log in to SQL*Plus as a user who has been granted the DV_ACCTMGR role.
For example:
sqlplus amalcolm_dvacctmgr
Enter password: password
Create the following user accounts:
CREATE USER eabel IDENTIFIED BY password; CREATE USER ahutton IDENTIFIED BY password; CREATE USER ldoran IDENTIFIED BY password;
Replace password with a password that is secure. See Oracle Database Security Guide for the minimum requirements for creating passwords.
Connect as SYS using the SYSDBA privilege, and then grant these users the CREATE SESSION privilege.
CONNECT SYS AS SYSDBA Enter password: password GRANT CREATE SESSION TO eabel, ahutton, ldoran;
In SQL*Plus, connect as the DV_ACCTMGR user.
For example:
CONNECT amalcolm_dvacctmgr
Enter password: password
Check the account status of the OE account.
SELECT USERNAME, ACCOUNT_STATUS FROM DBA_USERS WHERE USERNAME = 'OE';
If the OE account is locked and expired, unlock it and assign it a new password.
ALTER USER OE ACCOUNT UNLOCK IDENTIFIED BY password;
Log in to Oracle Database Vault Administrator as a user who has been granted the DV_OWNER or DV_ADMIN role.
"Starting Oracle Database Vault" explains how to log in.
In the Administration page, select Rule Sets.
The Rule Sets page appears.
Click Create.
The Create Rule Set page appears.
Enter the following information:
Name: Can Modify Orders
Description: Rule set to control who can modify orders in the OE.ORDERS table
Leave the remaining settings and their defaults, and then click OK.
In the Rule Sets page, select the Can Modify Orders rule set, and then click Edit.
The Edit Rule Set: Can Modify Orders page appears.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and under Rules Associated To The Rule Set, click Create.
Create the following two rules:
| Rule Name | Rule Expression | |
Check IP Address |
DVF.F$CLIENT_IP = '192.0.2.12' |
|
Check Session User |
DVF.F$SESSION_USER IN ('EABEL', 'AHUTTON') |
For the Check IP Address rule, replace 123.45.67.89 with the IP address for your own computer. In a real-world scenario, you would create an expression that includes all the IP addresses for the users who should be allowed access.
Both of these rules use the default factors Client_IP and Session_User. See "Default Factors" for more information about these factors. If these factors have been removed or modified, you can use the following rule expressions instead:
Check IP Address: UPPER(SYS_CONTEXT('USERENV','IP_ADDRESS')) = '192.0.2.12'
Check Session User: UPPER(SYS_CONTEXT('USERENV','SESSION_USER')) IN ('EABEL', 'AHUTTON')
Ensure that the Status setting for the Can Modify Orders table is set to Enabled and Evaluation Options is set to All True.
Click OK.
In Oracle Database Vault, return to the Administration page.
Under Administration, select Secure Application Roles.
The Secure Application Roles page appears.
Click Create.
The Create Role page appears.
In the Role box, enter ORDERS_MGMT to name the role.
Under Rule Set, select Can Modify Orders.
Click OK.
At this stage, the Database Vault secure application role and its associated rule set are created, though the role does not yet have any privileges.
In SQL*Plus, connect as user OE.
CONNECT OE
Enter password: password
Grant the SELECT privilege to the ORDERS_MGMT Database Vault Secure application role.
GRANT SELECT ON ORDERS TO ORDERS_MGMT;
In SQL*Plus, connect directly to the database as user eabel.
CONNECT eabel@orcl
Enter password: password
Replace orcl with the name of your database instance.
Set the ORDERS_MGMT role.
EXEC DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE('ORDERS_MGMT');
Typically, you would embed this call in the application that the user logs in to.
Select from the OE.ORDERS table.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM OE.ORDERS;
The following output should appear:
COUNT(*)
----------
105
Because user eabel is logging directly into the database from the correct IP address and is listed as a valid session user, she can select from the OE.ORDERS table. If user ahutton logs in to SQL*Plus in the same manner, she also can select from the OE.ORDERS table.
Reconnect as user eabel without specifying the database instance, and then try to select from the OE.ORDERS table again.
CONNECT eabel
Enter password: password
EXEC DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE('ORDERS_MGMT');
The following output should appear:
Error at line 1: ORA-47305: Rule Set Violation on SET ROLE (Can Modfiy Orders) ...
Next:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM OE.ORDERS;
The following output should appear:
ERROR at line 1: ORA-00942: table or view does not exist
Even though user eabel is a valid user, she has violated the Check IP Address rule in the rule set, so she is not granted the ORDERS_MGMT role. The only way for the IP address to be recognized is to connect by specifying the database instance, as user eabel did in Step 1. (For an explanation about how this works, see Step 7 in "Step 3: Map the Domain Factor Identities to the Client_IP Factor", in Chapter 7.)
Connect as user ldoran and then enter the following statements:
EXEC DBMS_MACSEC_ROLES.SET_ROLE('ORDERS_MGMT');
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM OE.ORDERS;
Because user ldoran is not a valid user, she is not granted the ORDERS_MGMT role. Therefore, she cannot select from the OE.ORDERS table.
Log into SQL*Plus as the DV_OWNER or DV_ADMIN user.
For example:
CONNECT lbrown_dvowner
Enter password: password
Delete the ORDERS_MGMT secure application role.
EXEC DBMS_MACADM.DELETE_ROLE('ORDERS_MGMT');
Enter the following commands in the order shown to remove the Can Modify Orders rule set.
EXEC DBMS_MACADM.DELETE_RULE_FROM_RULE_SET('Can Modify Orders', 'Check IP Address');
EXEC DBMS_MACADM.DELETE_RULE_FROM_RULE_SET('Can Modify Orders', 'Check Session User');
EXEC DBMS_MACADM.DELETE_RULE('Check IP Address');
EXEC DBMS_MACADM.DELETE_RULE('Check Session User');
EXEC DBMS_MACADM.DELETE_RULE_SET('Can Modify Orders');
COMMIT;
Connect as the Database Vault Account Manager and drop the users.
For example:
CONNECT amalcolm_dvacctmgr
Enter password: password
DROP USER eabel;
DROP USER ahutton;
DROP USER ldoran;
If uneccessary, lock and expire the OE user account.
ALTER USER OE ACCOUNT LOCK PASSWORD EXPIRE;
You can check system performance by running tools such as Oracle Enterprise Manager (including Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control, which is installed by default with Oracle Database), Statspack, and TKPROF. For more information about Oracle Enterprise Manager, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager documentation set. For information about Database Control, refer to its online Help. Oracle Database Performance Tuning Guide describes the Statspack and TKPROF utilities.
Table 8-1 lists Oracle Database Vault reports that are useful for analyzing Oracle Database Vault secure application roles. See Chapter 18, "Oracle Database Vault Reports," for information about how to run these reports.
Table 8-1 Reports Related to Secure Application Roles
You can use the DVSYS.DBA_DV_ROLE data dictionary view to find the Oracle Database Vault secure application roles used in privilege management. See "DVSYS.DBA_DV_ROLE View" for more information.